I thought this story was pretty neat. It is the Armed Citizen Project. It apparently started off as a grad student study that is now spreading to numerous cities.

Basically, 20 ga shotguns are being provided to eligible recipients for self defense and training provided with the guns. The story mentions "state mandated training" which is not something that exists in Texas for shoguns.

Kyle Copeland's paraphrased quote sounded very proactive....

Quote:

We are creating new responsible gun owners. We are giving them training. We are conducting background checks. We are giving out shotguns.

The comments by Geoff Berg need not be discussed, please. I thought it would be nice to focus on the benefits of the ACP.

They were talking about this on Fox News yesterday. "Up to 100 households per city", they said. The Antis are in a tizzy.

__________________
Still happily answering to the call-sign Peetza.
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The problem, as you so eloquently put it, is choice.
-The Architect
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He is no fool who gives what he can not keep to gain what he can not lose.
-Jim Eliott, paraphrasing Philip Henry.

I hope they're serious about collecting data on crime in those neighborhoods. It would be a pity if this ends up being just an expensive publicity stunt.

__________________"Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."
(Milan Kundera, Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1980)

My impression from the article you linked, and from ACP's website, is that they're targeting specific neighborhoods. Crime data would have to be broken down geographically within cities, and then compared with data from similar areas, in order to say anything meaningful about whether the guns and training they're providing actually did make a difference.

__________________"Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."
(Milan Kundera, Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1980)

1. If a recipient uses a gun to defend his or her life, we'll never hear about it.

2. If a recipient uses a gun to kill a spouse, child, or commit suicide, we'll never hear the end of it!

__________________Violence is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and valorous feeling which believes that nothing is worth violence is much worse. Those who have nothing for which they are willing to fight; nothing they care about more than their own personal safety; are miserable creatures who have no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of those better than themselves. Gary L. Griffiths, Chief Instructor, Advanced Force Tactics, Inc. (Paraphrasing John Stuart Mill)

Every major city has a GIS (geographic information system) for the analysis of all sorts of information. Crime is just one type of data that can be run through these systems and I can assure you every major city, many minor cities, have this data and if it isn't available online, it is available from the city.

Of course the raw data can be obtained without much difficulty. (It's easy to find crime statistics broken down by neighborhoods if you're considering where to buy a house, for example.) My concern is more about whether ACP will in fact follow up by doing the kind of comparative analysis that would be necessary to show that what they're doing makes a difference. Their website states that donations will be used to pay for firearms and training, and that they "...may cover other expenses that will be incurred in the process of the analysis portion of this project." (my emphasis)

Maybe I'm too skeptical by nature, but people tend to be enthusiastic about the glamor part of their projects, and less so about the grunt work -- like crunching numbers.

__________________"Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."
(Milan Kundera, Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1980)

Okay, so the issue isn't about collecting the data, which are and will be available, but crunching the data. Got it. If the data are crunched, you probably want to see the results not just end up in the thesis or dissertation. Is that right as well?

Here is a brief bit of prognostication. Assuming the work is completed (not all graduate students complete their degrees, of course), the result will show no change in crime rates. The only possible positive crime impacts that come out of the data will be to show that households with firearms could have (and maybe did) use a firearm for self defense and maybe used it successfully to protect the given household.

If any changes in crime rates are detected, there will be such a lack of controls in the study that the change in crime rate cause will be undeterminable and attributing the changes to guns will be exceptionally naive.

The problems will stem from the fact that the shotguns distributed will not be carried around with people. So only the homes are protected. This will not stop crime literally out on the street such as drug transactions, drug violence, rape in the neighborhood park, muggings, etc.

Maybe I am wrong and the study can show something positive about guns and crime rates, but based on previous TFL discussions, I don't think this will be the case. If it does, it ia a big plus for us, but if it can't establish this link or concludes that the presence of guns known to be in such neighborhoods actually failed to lower crime rates, what then?

__________________
"If you look through your scope and see your shoe, aim higher."
-- said to me by my 11 year old daughter before going out for hogs 8/13/2011

And to go back to Gary's point, if someone uses even one of these guns in a harmful way, that's what will get the publicity.

So, yeah -- I'd say this is mostly a publicity stunt, with a pretty small chance of a good outcome for us.

__________________"Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."
(Milan Kundera, Book of Laughter and Forgetting, 1980)

Most on this forum are against background checks and completing a firearms training course. Yet seem to be supporting it by backing this initiative, why not just hand them out to people no checks just name and address to collect data. I would agree the first negative incident and the anti gun will be all over it.

at this point any misuse of firearms will be blown out of proportion by the media anyhow, so I say we just ignore it and dont let their possible negative feedback affect how we advance our own agenda. at the very least, citizens who otherwise did not have the means, are no able to protect themselves, and that I say is a win for us.

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